Northern District Times Review of "Nor the Years Condemn" by Justin Sheedy

Sydney's Northern District Times 28 March 2012

THE FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL
Tales of Sons Are Covered
By Robert Kennard. Picture: Brent McGilvary - Sydney's Northern District Times 28 March 2012

TRUE stories of Australian fighter pilots in a battle of survival are the basis of Justin Sheedy’s latest book, Nor the Years Condemn. The historical fiction depicts the heroism of young Australian men who trained as fighter pilots for the British Empire in World War II.

"The best and brightest of a generation crossed the planet to fly and fight against Nazi tyranny and won," Sheedy said. "It was the great sportsmen, the brains and young men of exceptional natural ability and character who went on to fly Spitfires, Mosquitos and Lancasters (with a) staggering one-in-three chance of survival."

Readers have described cockpit-seat flying sequences as "brilliant" and "cinematic", but Sheedy says the narrative moves beyond wartime feats. "It is also a story of the grieving mothers cursed to relinquish their wonderful sons to war, of first love, of strategic deception and betrayal, of brotherhood and once in-a-lifetime friendship on a knife’s edge," he says. The book is a time capsule of World War II, with contextual language, location description and cultural attitudes dominant throughout the narrative.

Sheedy, whose first novel detailed his 1970s childhood in North Epping, said the book struggled to get picked by a major Australian publisher. In spite of this he persisted and followed the trend to publish online. Nor the Years Condemn is an e-book and has been published in Print-on-Demand Paperback at Amazon.

Massive thanks to Journalist Robert Kennard and Editor Colin Kerr of Sydney's Northern District Times.
-- Justin Sheedy
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